Cocktail Chronicles
An excellent blog by a man who has more cocktail books than I thought were published.

cocktailnerd
Gabriel has crafted a fine site and shares some of my pain with a state-run liquor system. He also manages to post about 4000 times more than me, and it’s always interesting!

Dave’s Drinks
Anyone who posts about exotic cocktails makes it on this blogroll!

Days That End In “Y”
An all-around drinking blog that posts quality news on the world of spirits, beer, wine, gadgets… the list goes on, as do the posts, which are too numerous to count. “Updated frequently” would be an understatement.

Dr. Bamboo
A fellow Pennsylvanian with a penchant for art and fine cocktails.

Favorite Posts

Taking a page from one of my favorite food blogs, Momofuku for 2, I’ll occasionally be posting variations on the recipes found within Beachbum Berry Remixed. Doing so will help me use up ingredients before they go bad (like fruit nectar from a stupid can) and to stretch the world of tiki in ways it ought not be stretched.

Martian Sunblock

Donate the above to a shaker, fill with crushed ice and shake for 1/3000th of a Martian day, or 30 Earth seconds. Pour into a spacey tiki mug. Garnish in some ridiculous way that no bartender would ever have the time for.

Combining Papaya nectar and JWray is like putting Lady Gaga and Dio on an airship together and giving them flaming broadswords.

Even with that knowledge, each ingredient I poured into my shaker warned that this potion would be a nasty mess. My first sip was such a shock that I was immediately transported to a post-apocalyptic beach on Mars, gazing into the sun and watching little crustaceans crackle from the intense heat. My space suit didn’t matter – I could bathe in this cocktail. (Ed. note: I’m not suggesting you use Wray and Nephew overproof rum as a sunblock. It will likely promote 3rd degree burns and cause me to lick you.)

For favorite ginned up Tiki drinks, I guess I’m sticking with the classics — Trader Vic Fog Cutter (even though gin is a minor component), and the Suffering Bastard, even though I guess that is technically pre-Tiki.

I’ve been curious about that drink, since I saw it on the TDN twitter feed. Looks tasty. I happen to have a package (sleeve?) of Ceres apricot & papaya nectars, so will definitely get on the making of this.

As to favorite gin tiki, I would definitely go with the Saturn and the Luau Scorpion Bowl, which has a really wonderful gin presence. Also, I’ve found, again & again, that gin based tiki drinks are best with a more floral gin like Hendrick’s.

I’ve made it all the way through two Tiki Months without succumbing to the desire to try Pimento Dram. This post (and that awesome picture) has pushed me over the edge. I do think I’ll order it, rather than endure the wait of making it myself.

I must agree the hardest part of this aginssment is getting over your own voice. It’s like, “Do I really sound this dumb all the time?” I actually didn’t use a script and just kind of went for it. As a result, I got a lot of “um’s” and “like’s” thrown in there. However, I think this makes it authentic. The big issue that immediately popped into my mind was the orality versus written literacy debate. Obviously, this aginssment is based on the written word so we all have to be literate to complete it. However, I can imagine a future world where this oral literacy supersedes written literacy practices. With technology rapidly developing, it’s only a matter of time before this type of digital oral literacy is perfected.I think a balance between written and digital oral literacy is ideal. There are pros and cons to both. Written literacy involves symbols which can be interpreted by anyone who knows that language. Oral literacy is subject to dialect variation and slang which can easily cause confusion. However, the latter is undeniably authentic where writing can sometimes seem contrived. Additionally, some people are just better at speaking than writing. For them, oral literacy could be the perfect solution. It’s really a tough debate either way. Growing up without this technology, I can honestly say it feels foreign to me compared to the written word. However, the future generation is growing up with this technology. Everything from Skype to video games utilizes the spoken word. Only time will tell how my own generation will deal with this emerging technology.